GUA Conference

No quilting this week!

Carole's Chinese Coins

Carole is coming through town next week on her way to Paducah, the lucky dog! She made this quilt to give to the person who's house they are staying at. It sounds like a win-win situation to me. They get homey accommodations and the homeowner gets a quilt.

She said to make it pretty, so that's what I tried to do. Diagonal crosshatching in the coins, bumpy feathers in the sashing and big border and a feather swirl in the outer border.

The back looks pretty good too!

Lisa's T-Shirt Quilt

Lisa made this cute t-shirt quilt at Spring Quilt camp and I'm just amazed at how she makes all those different shapes come together to a great quilt.

In Cincinnati, I purchased a couple new pantos and for this quilt I used Bauhaus Baby. I thought it was a good fit with all the squares and straight lines. I chose Sunlight PermaCore Thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Love the yellow thread on the back too!

Speaking of t-shirt quilts, this week the Common Threads Quilt Guild was treated to a program on t-shirt quilts by Caryl Schuetz of Indianapolis. She gave a powerpoint presentation and showed lots of cute t-shirt quilts. We are fortunate to have such a great speaker just an hour away from us. Thanks for a great program Caryl!

Carol's Hobo Quilt

This quilt that Carol brought is a group quilt. They are presenting it to a supporting church group and I believe they call themselves the Hobo Club.

 The pattern is from  Hobo Quilts by Debra G Henninger. The design on each boxcar is a symbol used to share information among hobos, much like the Underground railroad quilts. It is very interesting and I didn't know the significance of the blocks until I started to write this post.  This blog explains it.

I quilted a meander in the background, those double wavy lines in the narrow border, e's and o's in the outer border, swirls in the wheels, SID and straight vertical lines on the cars themselves.

3 threads, cream, tan and black, all Omni and Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Quiltmaker Blog

Check out the Quilty Pleasures blog today! I wrote a guest post about Pieced Hexies after our guild workshop and program by Mickey Depre.

Dawn's Applique Quilt

When new customer Dawn brought me this quilt, she said that she wanted an allover quilting design. I said, "over the applique, too?" She said, "Yes."

Easy-peasy for me! But when I actually got around to loading it on Mabel, I gave her a call just to be sure. She had changed her mind, so, I'm glad I called.

The quilting isn't too intense, just a meander in the main areas, two wavy lines in the narrow border (This is my new favorite quilting, as you will see later that I have used it again), and wavy line on the stems and flowers, and veins on the leaves.

 I used the same thread throughout, Lava Bambi and cotton batting that she brought.

I would say that the majority of the quilts that I quilt have at least one fabric that I have in my stash. This one is the exception, I don't think I own or have owned a single fabric in this quilt.

Kim's Bright Squares

One of Kim's friends made this delightful quilt. It's for a grandchild who is moving into a big bed! I think she made curtains to match.

Just a meander with Lava thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting. The backing was minkee and it had a couple of seams. I wasn't sure how that would work out, but it did just fine.

Sharon's Swoon

This beautiful quilt made by Sharon had me sitting and staring for along time. I searched high and low on Google for some ideas and finally settled on some of the quilting designs from Linda at The Quilted Pineapple. 

I quilted continuous curves and straight lines like she did, but did a curvy feather meander in the background.

I had a bit of an issue at the beginning. I'm not sure how, but the thread jumped out of the tension disk. It looked beautiful on top, but the back looked like this:

So, some stitching had to come out and be re-stitched.
Hope she likes it.

Paper Piecing, Row-By-Row and Doll Clothes

Last Thursday I led a group of quilters in Frankfort at L&S Fish Sew-N-Vac in their first adventure in paper piecing. Paper piecing is one of those things that you either LOVE or HATE. Of the 6 that were there only one HATED it. So much so that she left after 15 minutes. Made me feel really bad :(

Here is my project, ready for quilting. I think I will buy a hanger from Ackfield Wire to display it. If you haven't checked out their quilt hangers, you should do it now. They have great products!

The other 5 quilters finished the top of their piece and had every intention of taking it home to finish the rest of it.  The block is Desert Lily by Caroline Reardon, Block #248 from Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, Volume 3.

Last weekend I worked on Judy's Row-By-Row and I am happy with the result. We each picked a block to use and mine is a double square-in-a-square. The blocks are 8" and the sashing strips finish  just shy of 1.375. Here are all three of her rows so far and mine is on the left. She asked for the yellow to be used as a background.

And last but not least, a set of PJ's for Liz's American Girl doll, Julie. I intended to do these for her birthday but they got buried in the sewing room. I'll probably keep them for a while as she doesn't play with Julie as much as she does Lily. You may remember that Lily got some clothes for Christmas last year.

That's what has been keeping me busy lately, when I'm not quilting with Mabel.

Sue's 2nd Batik Quilt

I think this quilt is made using the same blocks as this one. The arrangement is just different. As I was quilting it, I thought it looked a bit jumbled. Being a graphic designer, I like everything neat and aligned, but now that it's finished and I see the whole thing, I rather like it.

I used Lava Tiki thread and love how it looks. I don't use much Lave, but a friend used some on a quilt and showed a picture on Facebook the other day. It was a light bulb moment for me as I had just loaded this quilt.

She provided the batting and the panto is Whirligig. Some more close-ups of the thread: